Of Sleep and Chivalry
by Aitana Otara
Summary: They were only best friends. But the German's been noticing that Feliciano's been acting weird lately. And when Ludwig thought that he was harboring only unrequited love, he soon finds that in the darkest recesses of the Italian's mind, love towards him was actually possible. AU
1. 0: Glorious Mountain Views & Gifted Girl

**Of Sleep and Chivalry**

Summary: Feliciano's been acting weird lately. And when Ludwig thought that he was harboring only unrequited love, he soon finds that in the darkest recesses of the Italian's mind, love towards him was actually possible. AU; dun wanna spoil it but it's _basically_ GerIta in a way.

Safely rated K for now. I'll warn you that blood and gore will be coming up as well as possible rape.

* * *

**Introduction: Glorious Mountain Views and Gifted Girl**

_A blinding blue sky with few and slowly moving clouds. Directly over my eyes, different shades of green protected my face from the glare of the sun. Leaves. Judging by their quiet shuffling over me, gentle caress of the wind on my cheeks and its whispers in my ear, and the soft warmth of the sun on my feet, it is most likely early spring. _

_My eyes shifted to the view in front of me. Majestic. More greenery as far as my eyes could follow the earth before it became already too far and blurry for me to determine whether it was the foothills or a very faraway forest merging with the meadow. Further off in the expanse of the grassland, littered here and there, not too distant from me, were yellows, reds, oranges and pinks of flowers on the swaying grass. In the background and over the expanse of the grassland were a lot of different hues of blue, grey and white on snow-capped mountains while_

"- _- - - - -, look! I made a painting!"_

_I turned to my right to look at the speaker with the strangely familiar and melodic voice. A little girl, probably my age, with a face so cheery it could light up the whole world smiled at me, her eyes shut. But when she opened them the next slow second, beautiful green orbs glowed under the shade of the tree that protected us from the early afternoon sun. _

_The next thing I noticed was a cute button nose that was rounded at the tip, yet it was narrowed at the bridge, somewhat like how most grown-up men have their noses. But this one was more effeminate, though it certainly still held that effect while at the same time, it so perfectly complimented the rest of her features: pretty, brown eyelashes; plump, pink lips; and her round, cherubim face._

_Her soft hair was lively, as she was, in the sense of having a strand defying gravity, standing and bending up impossibly to a nice curl, also in the color of rich rust-brown in contrast to the grass beneath us, bounced as the girl, in her white apron and green dress that fittingly matched her large doll-like eyes, jumped in excitement on the spot while I took the seemingly-gigantic canvas from her tiny and delicate-looking hands._

_Her paint-caked fingers were soft when mine brushed against them as I carefully took the canvas from her as if it were made of rice paper instead of linen that could break under the strength of my grip. My palms were sweaty then, since noon had been so hellishly hot, and I doubted she'd like having my hands marking the edges of her two-hour masterpiece._

_When my eyes adjusted from the glow of the fabric under the sun's bright rays, it seemed like my breath had been stolen from me for a moment, and my heart had stopped in response. What I saw on the stretched piece of cloth over the stretcher * was simply… Well, how should I put it in words? Magnificent? Spectacular? Stunning?_

_There were no words for it._

_There on that piece of canvas, was a beautiful oil painting of the scenery around us. And in the middle of all the detailed green bushes and grass, and the fluffy but few clouds on the beautiful blue sky, a couple of figures were painted there. One was of the artist, a self-painting, as she would tell me sometimes when she showed me paintings of herself and only herself in the halls of her grandfather's manor; and the other one was of me—blue eyes, golden hair, black clothes and all._

_But what really blew me away wasn't simply how well and how detailed, how realistic she made it to be, but also because she had painted the both of us laughing and having fun. And the quality of those smiles were almost too real that I could almost believe that I could smile as widely and maybe laugh as sincerely as I was being portrayed in the picture. As for her, well, she laughed and smiled and did silly little things on a daily basis so it didn't seem too strange to me anymore, like making crowns out of flowers and vines and putting them over our heads. And from just staring at the children on the linen canvass, I could even hear our voices in my head blending so beautifully with each other. _

_My right hand was entangled in her left one while it seemed that we were running forward, towards the viewer of the picture. And if I usually looked like just some other kid in town with my facial shape, hair color and the eye color being common in this nation, my face had been painted so strategically that one could never mistake it for anyone other than I._

"_Do you like it?" Her angelic voice brought me back from the painting to reality. My eyes met hers and I decided in my head that I like the reality better than the picture right then. The girl's smile was heartwarming and perfect and it felt like a sin to look away and clear my throat. I noticed as I did that, that some muscles in my face relaxed while some contracted. I must have been smiling when I saw the picture. I have never thought that a single painting could affect me this much and make me smile unconsciously._

"_It's my best work so far," she added as she leaned forward and rocked back on her feet, her arms and fingers straightening at her sides and angling towards back, much like how girls always did when they tried to be cute. But for her, I can never think that she's trying. She's actually beautiful without her realizing it, I think, but of course, I don't think I could ever tell her that, no matter how much I want to._

"_It's nice," was all I said with my usual tone that almost everyone has deemed to be imperious and arrogant. Everyone, except for her, so far._

_Even with that response, the girl giggled and clapped her hands together and laughed. And that laugh, that lovable, charming laugh that I've always heard every single day since we've met, actually sounded better than the one I heard in my imagination just now while I had still been staring at the picture. _

"_I'm glad you like it," she told me, cocking her head to the side and closing her eyes with her pretty smile still intact. She straightened up the next second and her eyes went wide open and I could see her pupils dilate to the brightness of her surroundings. Her soft-looking lips formed a wide 'O' and she raised one finger up. And then she stated, "Oh! I had forgotten to sign it."_

So it was just that_, I thought with relief. I closed my eyes and gave a sigh as I handed back the canvas to her while I secretly hoped that my sweaty palms hadn't formed a stain on her magnum opus. It seems I didn't, or even if I did, she didn't notice as she took it in her arms. She then turned around and bent down to get the pen that she had left scattered on the grass around her along with her other art materials._

_I quickly covered my eyes after seeing a flash of white bloomers. I knew right then that I started flushing because my neck and my face, especially my cheeks, started warming up. I turned around and mentally started scolding myself and thinking of one of the things my _Opa_ would say. _

'_Girls are delicate beings and must be handled with care… Peeking, looking under their skirts and touching them in prohibited places is not handling them with care.'_

"_H-hey! Don't do that!"_

"_Eh? Do what?" The adorable brunette said with her high voice as she turned to face me and cocked her head to the side. She brought one finger up to her chin and stared at me._

_I bit my lip and furrowed my eyebrows as I organized my words in my head. How should I even tell her what I mean? Isn't it not handling girls with care if I try to tell one that I had seen her underwear without meaning to? What if she suddenly starts calling me a pervert and isolating herself from me?_

_I turned to her and hopelessly started explaining myself while knowing that I was still flushing a bright tinge of pink. "Um, don't pick up things from the ground. No, I mean, don't do turn your back to me. No, what I really mean is, er, you shouldn't turn your back to me and bend over! N-no, that's not what I meant! I swear I didn't mean anything by that… I just, I-I mean..." _

_Deciding I had embarrassed myself enough already, I simply gave a sigh. I glanced at her. She still wore that clueless expression. However after a moment, she dropped her hand and let her arm join its pair encircle the painting in an embrace. Her pretty features relaxed into a kind smile. She chuckled a little bit before she signed the painting. "It's all right," she said when she looked back up at me with those ocean-deep orbs. "… I guess," she added with a laugh._

_I blinked away my flush and stared at the ground, my lips in a tight line and my little, chubby hands clenched into harmless little fists as I tried to keep myself from reddening again. I spared her a glance. She was gazing at me with a certain look I've managed to memorize and interpret after all these months since we became friends. I must look like I'm glaring again._

"_Here." She offered the canvas to me with both hands on the sides with that sweet smile that always made my heart warm up. "I want you to have this."_

"_B-but, isn't this your greatest piece of work yet?" I asked, baffled. I even took a step back in surprise and looked at her like she grew three pairs of eyes._

_As a reply, she simply nodded and smiled at me, motioning the art piece towards me again. "That is why I want you to have it, - - - - - -."_

_I had little time to ponder why her last word, like her first, seemed to suddenly disappear in the gentle breeze between us before everything went black._

Ludwig opened his eyes to the darkness of his room after the dream finished. He sat up and rubbed at his face while he tried to calm his swiftly-beating heart, forgetting most of his most recent dream in the process. He then glimpsed at his digital clock at his bedside table. Four thirty-two in the morning.

The loud ringing that filled the room the next second barely surprised him. He was used to calls from his boss or his colleagues this early in the morning. But now had been the only occasion where he actually woke up before his mobile phone could even ring.

After reaching for his device, Ludwig pushed the answer button and pressed it to his ear. "_Ja_?"

"Yo, Luddy! Wakey, wakey! Hey, you gotta get here on site ASAP, by the way. We've got this guy over here… and he's seriously threatening to spill my burgers," the loud voice from the other end of the line complained.

Ludwig sighed as he stood up and left the phone between his cheek and shoulders while he made his bed. "Then what's the problem? Just show him your badge—"

"Yeah, about that, Luddy, my dear partner," the voice drawled. "He's dead."

* * *

*Unless you've figured it out and unless you know what I meant by this, _stretcher_ refers to the stretcher bar/frame that artists use. It is usually the rectangular or square frame of wood where they fasten their canvasses around so it stretches and stays stretched in order for the artist to paint on them. It's also used in small-scale embroidery.

**A/N**: So yeah! Here I am with another random story! Well, it's not actually random since I've got this roll going on. Don't worry, I'm working on Reluctance and the rest of the Love is (blah) series too. And okay, to be honest, I have no idea how to continue MZA so if you guys have suggestions, do share them.

And I know I promised to update ages ago buuuut then college came around and I've just started my freshman term aaaand… I was just seriously feeling so bad back then that I could never seem to update, so I sort of did... update the first chapter of a new story. Oh well. This will be a precious little one, I tell ya. It'll be angs-tay, I swear on my dead turtle's grave!

[Haha, forgive me for sounding weird. I've got a shortage of sleep last night and probably tonight as well]

Let me know if you spot any spelling/grammatical mistakes. And please, please, please do R&R. Hearts to you all~


	2. 1: Case Reassignments

**Of Sleep and Chivalry**

Summary: Feliciano's been acting weird lately. And when Ludwig thought that he was harboring only unrequited love, he soon finds that in the darkest recesses of the Italian's mind, love towards him was actually possible. AU; dun wanna spoil it but it's _basically_ GerIta in a way.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Case Reassignments**

The scene that he came to was like something that came out of your everyday cop or detective soap opera series. Police cars were parked by the crime scene. Yellow tape was stretched out around it as a border from the public, the nosy citizens and the authorities. Red and blue lights flashed through the night, illuminating the scene in consistent flashes and overpowering the streetlamp that shone down upon the very reason why he was summoned here on this cold, ungodly hour of the sixth of October.

A good distance from the onlookers and the yellow tape lay a man in his own blood and some dead leaves, facing the dark four forty-five morning sky. It was fairly cold and cloudy that morning and it looked like rain might fall soon, threatening to erase the vital evidences that might have been scattered just about the area of the crime scene.

Ludwig Beilschmidt walked towards the vibrant red of the blood on the middle of the sidewalk. As he marched, he could already see his fellow agents standing in a small half circle a couple of meters away from the body. The man in the rightmost side, blond, bespectacled and a little taller than the usual American, noticed him and smiled widely. "Ah, Luddy, early as always," he said, waving to him in greeting.

"I try my best," the addressed said in response. Alfred Jones, a strange American who always seemed to be awfully hyper and upbeat, was appointed to be the leader of their investigation team. And while Ludwig was the uptight, clean and orderly kind, their work together was smooth and fluid and was scarcely allotted with problems—except for the first few cases that they worked together when they had still not gotten to be in tune with each other.

"_Guten Morgen, Brüder_," the man standing beside Alfred said with a huge grin that matched the brightness of Alfred's smile. He stepped forward and slapped Ludwig's back with less power than the usual. Ludwig mumbled repeated the greeting to his brother, Gilbert Beilschmidt, unit leader of his own investigation team. He had pale-blond hair that almost always looked white and his eyes, in contrast to his younger brother's deep blue, were a very deep brown-red color that they almost always seemed to be red. And despite being younger, it seemed Ludwig has still grown a few more centimeters taller than Gilbert. The same could be said for their muscle mass since Ludwig had once been part of the military.

Lastly, the man closest to Ludwig gave him a nod in greeting as well. Ludwig returned it, too. He was the tallest in the group (and second tallest in the whole bureau) and had the same blond hair like the ex-military, but was bespectacled like Alfred, and had the personality opposing Gilbert's. He was known as Berwald Oxenstierna, a Norwegian who is part of Gilbert's unit and would only talk in his thickly-accented, condensed English if he only needed to.

"So I just got the call and it seems that the Beilschmidt unit will be handing us this case," the American said.

The younger of the German-rooted brothers looked at the older one with confusion in his eyes. Gilbert gave a sour smile and reached up to rest his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't worry. We're not simply giving away the case. Another bigger one's being pushed onto us. And the higher ups want it done pronto," he reassured. "Besides, I'm pretty confident in your abilities. And I'm referring to you as a team."

Alfred visibly smiled from Ludwig's peripheral vision. "Thanks, dude," he said. "Don't worry, we'll finish this in no time. After all, you've already given us everything we need. Now all we gotta do is catch this killer and put him behind bars."

"That's good to hear then," Gilbert said, turning to the American and dropping his gloved hand and shoving it into his thick coat pocket. As he spoke, a man came up to him, blond and only a few inches shorter than Oxenstierna but still taller than the rest of them. He walked up to Gilbert, hunched into his thick layer of clothing and scarf and all, and waited for the pale-haired man to turn his attention to him before speaking.

"Boss, I just got a call from the people they've stationed to watch Dickson's house. Says they heard gun shots. They already secured the area," he said. Then he turned to the rest of them and dipped his chin up in greeting. "Mornin', Al, Ludwig."

"Good morning to you, too, Kohler," Alfred replied, his too-early-to-be-cheerful smile back on his face. Ludwig only did as he'd done in greeting mostly so far, he nodded.

Gilbert turned to the two other people not on his unit. "Well, I'll see you around, _Brüder_. Bya, Al. We'll be off catching some unawesome crooks who dare break through our security." And with that, he turned away while the other two blonds followed him off the scene and into their unit cars before driving away.

Just as the two were watching them leave, a woman came through the yellow tape, thickly dressed like the rest of them. Ludwig recognized her flowing brown locks even from afar. Her name was Elizaveta Héderváry, a Hungarian who was naturalized when her family immigrated into the states back when she was fourteen. This case would be her sixth yet in the team and in her whole career as a police detective as she had just recently graduated and was therefore treated as the 'baby girl' of the group—or so that was what Alfred referred her as once, which unfortunately earned him a hit in the head despite his superiority.

As far as Ludwig knew, she was a rather cheerful girl who only became wary whenever his brother was around and bashful whenever Gilbert's other colleague, a Mr. Roderich Edelstein, was in her presence. She could be aggressive, too, but honestly, what kind of woman wouldn't be so if they weren't insulted? This morning, however, she didn't look like she was in her usually nice mood.

"Mornin', Liz," Alfred greeted, smiling at her with his blindingly bright smile. "How's the morning call?"

"Was hoping to get a good night's sleep after finally finishing last night's case. Turns out it was too much to ask," the Hungarian said with an almost yawn. She looked around before asking, "Where's Kiku?"

"Dunno," the superior agent said with a shrug, also searching for the last unit member who usually handled the 'geeky stuff'. There was an awkward silence before he decided to shrug and get the gears going. "Anyways, let's start up already. We've already lost enough time. We don't want the evidences to freeze up and disappear in this cold."

"Though the freezing part would be much beloved depending on which evidence you mean," Elizaveta mumbled as she turned towards the body.

"Liz, you go and take down your own observations about the body. Luddy, you check the area for other evidences. I'll start the witness interrogation," Alfred instructed them. The two nodded before going off to do their work.

Kiku Honda reported to Alfred with a flurry of apologies a few minutes after Alfred's instructions before he was given his own duties. After about an hour in which they finished the gathering of evidence, witness statements, observations and hypotheses, Alfred gave them each three hours to get home and catch up on sleep.

Ludwig knew that the American wouldn't be following his own instructions, and that, despite being pretty heroic in its own little way, was also a little stupid. After all, what's the use of staying up for the rest of the time if the investigation's on hold anyway? So the taller blond stayed even after Elizaveta and Kiku had already left.

"What's holding you, Luddy?" Alfred asked as they walked towards their parked cars.

"I know you won't be getting sleep even though you tell us to. So I'm here to tell you that myself," Ludwig said. The American stopped just outside his car and turned to look at Ludwig with a warm smile.

He chuckled and nodded. "All right then, Beilschmidt," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "I'll go home and get some sleep and I'll see you in three hours. Satisfied?"

"_Ja. _I'll see you later, Jones," Ludwig answered before he turned and left to get into his own car. He started up the engines and drove off first, waving to Alfred as he turned and disappeared down the curve.

He knew that the bespectacled blond would go and get his sleep now. This episode had already happened a few times before after all. At first, he'd only been telling Alfred to do what he himself instructs as a colleague. But now, he's doing it as a friend as well.

After four years of being in the same bureau, they've become not just good friends, but partners and colleagues and a boss and his subordinate and were now in a unit, which Alfred also loved to call his 'work family' sometimes. And even if sometimes Alfred's crazy antics annoy him, Ludwig has learned to get used to it just as the other has become accustomed to his obsession with cleanliness and order.

Ludwig sighed as he reached his apartment. Finally, he could climb out of his car, get to the elevator to take him to his floor, unlock his 'front door', reset his alarm and just flop into bed—that is, of course, after he's shredded off his clothes and piled them up neatly—which he all did in less than five minutes. And the next thing he knew, sleep was welcoming him back warmly and the covers were protecting him from the cold.

If Ludwig were twenty years younger, image of the man's bloody pose would haunt him and keep him awake for hours to come. However, after serving the military for a limited time and going to wars in that time, and after hearing many war stories from his grandfather and after years of being in this field, it was something he had gotten used to. Ludwig had also expected the nightmares when he saw his first body. He had already seen the effects of seeing cadavers when his brother stirred and screamed and cried in his sleep due to the terrifying dreams he had crossed in his line of work—though he would reassure Ludwig that it was nothing to worry about.

Well, normally, a heavy, deep, dreamless sleep would be what Ludwig would go through at night. But tonight, after seeing a bloody piece of work after a long time of just solving shooting and poisoning cases, Ludwig found himself seeing flashes of the image in his mind. Disturbing images.

The next couple hours, after hearing his alarm go off in its usually high-pitched beeping and remembering the case the unit just got, Ludwig knew that it was going to be a long day ahead of them.

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AN: I'm not one for police or crime scene stories. I know that yet I struggle to widen my scopes and limitations. And since I'm writing this stuff up anyways, I might as well let y'all know that I only have one source of reference. And that would be the ever-awesome The Mentalist (still waiting for the whole of the fifth season to become available in our part of the country).

I know Alfred and Ludwig are speaking more formally here compared to how they did in the previous chapter. Well, I just thought they probably should when at work or something.

Hope you like it.


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